A course designed to unleash a dental office's potential

It seems to have always been a long-standing issue people thrown into a position in the dental practice without much training. I didn't realize just how prevalent it was until I began consulting. When Janice Janssen and I joined forces and founded Global Team Solutions, we were constantly amazed by this phenomenon. To make matters worse, it was often the office manager position where we found the most inefficiencies and inadequacies. We saw production numbers that would suffer and, even worse, the collection ratio was much too low.

Office managers everywhere would look at us with desperate eyes, begging for help. We looked for books, manuals, or anything to hand them yet couldn't find anything with relevance that was easy to read and understand. We decided to write the book ourselves. In 2010, “OMG! Office Management Guide - Creating Systems in the Dental Practice” was published. In 2015, we totally revised the book to make it more relevant and up to date.

Initially, we were going to hand it out as a gift. However, when we began getting calls asking where to buy it, we put it on Amazon. We were then asked to teach a course on the book. We began holding workshops on different topics within the book around the Texas and Missouri areas. In the past few years, we have been speaking more around the country, and we've been asked to take our OMG! workshops nationwide. We are pleased to announce that we have listened and OMG! is going coast to coast this fall.

The format we have found that works best is a hands-on, interactive setting. We ask the audience to not just be an attendee but to become a participant by sharing experiences, asking questions about issues they have, and helping others problem-solve. We work through several key protocols, inch by inch, and everyone has the opportunity to create a customized protocol for their individual practice. Just about every dental office has a recall system, but each office executes their system differently and then there are some without a system at all. Let's work through that and find what's not working, or how to make it better. For some of these office managers or dentists, this is the first time that they have really drilled into their insurance management process (or whatever system we are reviewing).

The topics covered will range from recall to insurance to treatment planning, etc. We also dive into team management issues such as meetings and conflict resolution.

Interaction is encouraged because we do not pretend to know it all. Some of the answers need to come from discussions with others who hold those same jobs. When we were office managers, we remember how lonely it felt because we didn't interact with other office managers. The courses we took always told us what we needed to do yet failed in teaching us how to make it happen. We want our OMG! course to dive deep into the “how.”

The OMG! workshop is attended by mostly office managers and dentists. However, we find it so valuable to an office when the entire admin team can attend with the doctor. The conversations are filled with oohs and ahs and we can literally see the light bulbs going off. It is so rewarding to us because we know that they are taking a giant step in moving their practice forward to a productive, harmonious environment. We were able to have that in our experiences and are excited that others can have that fun too.

We are thrilled that some corporate sponsors have helped us get this message out. SolutionReach and TransWorld Systems have been pivotal in our Texas cities; Henry Schein is sponsoring our Washington, D.C., Irvine, Calif., and Chicago locations; One Mind Health and the Lending Club (formally Springstone) have jumped into our Nashville, St. Louis, and Boston events. The Whiter Image has provided Chic Flics for door prizes at each of our courses.

We are very excited that we will be taking our OMG! workshop into the wild blue yonder next spring on a Celebrity Cruise line sponsored by PES/Global Tracks.

We are able to provide 6 hours of CE through the AGD PACE program. Although most office managers do not require or keep up with CE hours, for those who maintain their RDH or RDA and even DDS or DMD licenses, it makes it more worth their while. The purpose of the OMG! workshop is to make life easier and fun while working in the productive dental office. The comments we receive simply warm our hearts knowing the purpose has been achieved.

Class sizes are limited. Register today to reserve your spot. You will be so glad you did. For more information, visit www.GTSgurus.com.